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An author cannot truly call themselves an author till they get their first 1 star review, hate-filled non-review, and overall negative reviews for no good reason.

Only then can you, as an author, come into your own as a writer in the modern world of commercial book-pimping and Amazon.com star rating systems -- a service for customers / reviewers to either gush or rag on their favorite and least favorite books, movies, video games and what have you.

Lucky, this month I've felt very extra-special because I not only received one, but two (two!) scathing reviews of BITTEN: RESURRECTION.

But the key is not to take it too personally. I sure don't. I just find it amusing.

If I let it bother me too much I wouldn't be able to face my critics or learn from the criticism offered, both the good and the bad. And, the truth is, some negative reviews sometimes actually help boost sales.

But I thought I'd just complain a bit (because it's therapeutic) and share with you how NOT to write a review.

First off is the lovely Esmeralda's review. She gave my book one star because... zombies freak her out.

​Zombies?! Ew! Gross.

I highly doubt she read the full book, however, since the first grusome zombie scene begins on page 5. BITTEN hits the ground running and doesn't let up -- not even once. It's a gritty, non-stop, thrill ride of horror and, yes, you guessed it... zombies.

Maybe she's just doling out 1 star reviews to ALL the zombie books so as to have a list of what NOT to read?

Really, that's the only rational explanation. Otherwise it's just a dick thing to do -- down-vote a book for no good reason other than you don't like the subject matter contained therein and of which you clearly haven't read.

Oh, well. At least I can consider myself a real author now!

​So there's always a silver lining and all that.

Next up is this doozie of a review:​

It's definitely a 1 star review of my book. But what's curious to me is the reason she gives for giving her negative review. Maggies doesn't appreciate all the "Gratuitous rape scenes". Well, to each their own, I suppose.

There's just one problem though... BITTEN: Resurrection DOESN'T have any rape scenes.

Heck, I'll go on step further and I'll proudly own up to the fact that I have put in a lot of raunchy sex and horror scenes -- back to back even. That was done intentionally.

Just to be clear, I was trying to make a statement with BITTEN about the very thing this reviewer seems to be bothered by here. A comment on the way our culture demonizes sex but praises violence when it comes to the various forms of entertainment.

Our entertainment culture is saturated with over-the-top gratuitous violence. Nearly every Hollywood film is a bash-em-up, shoot-em-up, mega action blockbuster. The rated R Deadpool movie is the number 1 film in America right now. Gratutious violence abounds. But have a single mention of a nip-slip and everyone loses their freakin' minds!

Similarly, a real life mother breast feeding her baby in public will, sadly enough, get a host of nasty looks, threats, and abusive comments because her bare breasts get hyper-sexualized (because apparently a woman's boobs are only good for porn and smut films) and sexually-stigmatized (because God forbid they serve a biological function other than being the catalyst to launching a thousand boners) and thus get tagged with the connotation that they are somehow grotesque because they are deemed too sexual (and sex or sexuality is bad for some reason -- although for the life of me, I can't figure out why).

I don't know about you, but I find something terribly wrong with this current way of thinking. Sex is demonized while gratuitous violence is celebrated. This is backwards.

So, with BITTEN, I went out of my way to mix violence and sex up. If there was a violent, gruesome, or horrific scene I counter-balanced it with a sex scene. It's meant to cast light on the strange way in which out culture has come to tolerate and even venerate violent entertainment whilst simultaneously deriding and demonizing any form of entertainment with a bit of sex or sensuality to it.

But that's the cold, hard reality of it. Violence is praised as high entertainment and sex is degraded as pornographic smut.

As an artist, I tried to contrast these two extremes in my novel. One, I thought the genre was the perfect one to do it in and two, whether you like it or not, whether you agree with me or not, it's there and, yes, it's meant to bother those who value violent entertainment above sexual entertainment -- that was always my intent with the way in which I designed the sex vs. violence in my story.

So, there you have it folks. Two excellent negative reviews of my work!

Now, just to be fair, at least they actually purchased my book, even if they didn't seem to like it very much. For that I am grateful. And no matter how much blood, sweat, and tears you pour into your work, there's always someone who seems to want nothing better than to complain about it. That's just a part of being an artist, I suppose.

Subsequently, only thing I can do, the only thing any of us can do when faced with unfair or biased criticism is simply to try and look on the bright side and think positively. Hey, we can't please everyone.

With that said, here are some positive reviews of my novel worth reading -- and which, in my estimation, do a far better job of summing up what my book is about.

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Tristan Vick

By day I am an educator and a cultural ambassador. By night I entertain notions of being a literary master. In reality I am just a family man and ordinary guy who works hard and loves writing just about as much as I love my family. Just about.